Lichtenstein painting sells for record £27m

A 1961 painting by the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein has sold for $43.2 million
(£27m) in New York.

1:45PM GMT 09 Nov 2011

The painting, 'I Can See the Whole Room! ... and There's Nobody in it!' was the first of the artist's cartoon-style images, who was heavily influenced by advertising and comics.

The sale was a new record for a Lichtenstein work, which was set by his 1964 painting 'Ohhh ... All right ...' which showed a woman talking into a telephone and went for $42m (£26m) in November 2010.

Lichtenstein died in September 1997 in New York, at the age of 73.

"It was his first major pop statement," said Brett Gorvy, the head of contemporary art at Christie's.

"When there really is an absence at the very top level of this type of picture, it makes a higher price than it would have necessary been in a period like May 2008 when there were many other major masterpieces coming for sale."

The auction also saw a record sale for sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who died in June 2010, for her 1996 bronze spider, which fetched $10.7m (£7m).

Around 90 per cent of the 91 lots on offer found buyers which helped mitigate the hit Christie's took at last week's impressionist and modern auction, when virtually all the top lots went unsold.

"Sixteen record prices were achieved, and both for young artists or relatively young artists, but more importantly for the blue-chip artists," said Gorvy.

Other items sold included Andy Warhol's Four Campbell's Soup Cans, which went for $9.8m (£6.1 million) and his Silver Liz, a portrait of Elizabeth Taylor that sold for $16.3m (£10.2m) while Mark Rothko's White Cloud fetched $18.6m (£11.6).